


tempt my trouble

by Ellerigby13



Series: The Queen of New York [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Punisher (Comics), The Punisher (TV 2017), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Mob, F/F, F/M, Fade to Black, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Murder, Past Domestic Violence, Polyamory, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24257323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: Nicky Cavella got to where he was as the current head of the Mafia by doing pretty much the opposite of making friends.  Killing, kidnapping, bribing a woman who didn't love him into being his wife, to begin with.  He also disrespected Frank Castle's family and threatened Karen Page, which very reasonably put The Punisher's target on his back.Frank would've made him suffer, if Darcy Lewis Cavella didn't beat him to the punch.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Karen Page, Frank Castle & Curtis Hoyle, Frank Castle/Darcy Lewis, Frank Castle/Darcy Lewis/Karen Page, Frank Castle/Karen Page
Series: The Queen of New York [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905124
Comments: 33
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peachgalaxy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachgalaxy/gifts).



She didn’t expect the gunshot to be so damn loud.

As the pistol in Darcy Lewis Cavella’s hand exploded, her husband’s body crumpled to the ground in one anticlimactic thud. If blood weren’t leaking from the hole in his head, she almost wanted to laugh - this was how Nicky ended, face down and ass up, like the psycho kid from Toy Story, but with just a hefty smidgen more cocaine crusting his nostrils. She was waiting for him to spring back up, to wrap his hands around her throat like he did anytime she’d done something that displeased him, like overcook his poached eggs or breathe too loud. When he didn’t, she felt her body compress, the gun dangling from her hand like an extra part of her body.

“Mrs. Cavella?”

She hated being called that. She’d insisted Nicky’s staff, even his idiot goons, call her Darcy, so most of them had learned by now, but this voice was unfamiliar. A woman’s voice, soft and curious, with the gentle question mark at the end that Darcy hadn’t felt in years.

She whipped around to find its source, her gun at the ready. The woman in the doorway had her hands up, gossamer blonde hair loose and straight around her shoulders. She looked like she was made of pastels, creamy skin and blue fabric that echoed the blues of her eyes. The polar opposite of the man beside her - he pointed a much larger gun at Darcy, thick muscles straining against the holds of his dark clothes. He was dotted with scars, black hair closely shaven at the sides, and on his chest the emblem of the man that Nicky had wronged over and over.

“Frank Castle,” Darcy breathed, and her arm lowered, the gun going down with it. He lowered his gun slowly next, his eyes flickering to her husband on the floor. Darcy looked at the woman beside him. “Don’t call me Mrs. Cavella.”

“I’m sorry.” She rested one hand on Castle’s arm and took another cautious step forward. “I’m Karen Page. I...don’t think your husband liked me very much.”

“The journalist.” Darcy watched Castle press his fingers to her husband’s neck, feeling for a pulse that wouldn’t come. “You were going to expose him.”

Karen Page nodded, her tongue sliding anxiously over her soft pink lips. Darcy let her coax the gun out of her hand. “I was. I still can. I... _ we _ want to get you out of here.”

“Me?” She felt like a child, her throat suddenly so dry that thin syllables were the extent of what she could ease through her lips into the air thick with blood. “Why?”

“Because I know the truth about you. You didn’t want any of this.”

Darcy had read plenty in the local rags about herself. Rumors that her hand in marriage was the peace offering of a rival gang, rumors that she’d starred in porn before being bought out by the current head of the New York Mafia, rumors that she was a poor but brilliant girl who’d seduced Nicky so she could take control of his operations.

She didn’t know about brilliant, but she’d certainly been poor before Cavella turned his beady eyes on her.

The truth was, she  _ was _ poor. With a mother dying of a cancer that was far too expensive to even hope to survive, and a haughty, rich, violent gay man who, in every cliched way, had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

Be his beard, the key to his kingdom, and he’d pay for her mother’s treatment.

Her mother had died a year ago, of pneumonia that had snuck through the chemo and curled its awful claws into her. And here Darcy was, three years after the wedding, standing unabashed over his broken body.

“Darcy,” Frank said at last, his hand stained with Nicky’s blood. The gruff bass of his voice sent a shiver into her gut. “C’mon. We’re gettin’ you outta here.”

“Where?” she croaked. Her heart jumped as Karen closed her hand over her wrist, pulling her toward the exit.

“Somewhere safe.” While Darcy’s feet felt like they were treading through molasses, she still stumbled against Karen’s willowy frame when the taller woman stopped abruptly, blonde hair whipping over her shoulder as she stole a last glance at Castle. “Frank. Come on.”

She found herself in the middle seat of Frank Castle’s van, squished between him and Karen Page, and still, somehow, freezing down to her bones. Karen’s blanket around her shoulders and Frank’s knuckles white around the steering wheel made for sparse comforts.

“Do you need us to get anything from your apartment?”

They were already miles away, the city forgotten in the rearview, and more green in the windows than she remembered there being in New York.

The answer was no. There were no items she placed real value in that she’d leave anywhere Nicky could find them. The dress on her back and her mother’s necklace lying against her collarbone were more than she needed. Still, once she could fathom that she, in fact, was finally in control of the things her body was now free and allowed to do, she slid the gaudy diamond ring off her left hand and asked Karen to roll down the window so she could leave it on the road behind them.

(Later, when the two of them thought she was asleep, she would hear Frank grumble something about pawning the ring to pay for food, only for Karen to stifle his grousing with her lips, and remind him that either of them would do the same, in her shoes.)

They stopped at a drive-thru for something to eat, and for the first time in three years, she ate a cheeseburger, French fries, and a chocolate milkshake. All of this in one go was definitely a mistake - the moment the last drop of chocolate passed her lips, she felt her stomach tilt and nearly threw it all up in Karen’s lap before the passenger door could open - but she didn’t regret one bite.

Another hour into her impromptu road trip, she lay in the back of the van on the spare mattress that smelled like Frank, emboldened by the sounds of Earth, Wind, & Fire on repeat. “Why did you both come for me?”

Karen and Frank exchanged a look in the front seat. It was Karen who pressed her arm to the headrest, twisting her neck to meet Darcy’s eyes. “Nicky was going to have you killed.”

It should have been a bit more jarring how little this surprised her. Her response did not seem to fit Karen’s prompt. “But you have work in Manhattan.”

Karen reached over the back of her seat to sweep a lost strand of Darcy’s hair away from her face. “I thought this was more important. Besides, anywhere I can write, I can work.”

Before the gentle rocking of the van took her to the first of many naps she’d have that day, the faint thought passed through her head that Bill Rawlins, Nicky’s lover and CIA mole, had a date with Nicky tonight. He wouldn’t be very pleased to find Nicky in the state they’d -  _ she’d _ \- left him.

When she woke again the sky was dark, and she was still moving, but now, instead of the smooth forward motion of the van, it was a strange and slow bounce in fresh evening air. She noticed a moment too late that her vehicle was Frank Castle’s arms, that the pillow her head rested on was his broad chest, emblazoned with the symbol of death.

“Puh-me-down,” she slurred, her mouth dry with unuse. He hesitated, waiting until the crust of sleep had fully departed from her eyes to let her walk on her own. “Where are we?”

“Upstate,” Karen said simply from behind them. She threw one brown duffel bag over her shoulder and passed another to Frank, leaning back into the door as Darcy turned her head. “It’ll be just like summer camp.”

If Darcy had thought yesterday about running away from her life with the Punisher and the reporter her husband had vowed to kill for her indiscretions, she might have pictured the three of them with their heads down in an abandoned warehouse, or a shabby hut where Frank would have to chase away squatters.

The small but pleasant log cabin tucked between the pines was the last thing she might have expected.

“I had Frank stop at a little strip mall on the way here. Guessed your size.” As soon as she was certain Darcy’s arm wouldn’t fall off holding something heavier than her wedding ring, Karen passed her a thick plastic bag of fresh new clothes.

“How long are we supposed to spend up here?”

“Couple weeks,” Frank huffed, shouldering open the front door. “Long enough for everythin’ in the city to die down.” 

He didn’t give her terribly much space to pass him by as he held the door for her, and again she was suddenly aware of the handsome smell of him - leather, gunpowder, something subtle and crisp and cool that could have been aftershave. When Karen followed in her step, also closer than Darcy was used to having anyone, she couldn’t help but catch the fresh scent of paper and something light, almost champagne-like. Granted, over all of them lingered the definite coat of sweat that came with being sequestered in a van for God knew how many hours, but they each smelled far more pleasant than Nicky, who doused himself in Axe, because Rawlins liked it, or his goons Pittsy and Ink, who smelled like they didn’t bother with deodorant in the first place.

Darcy was so wrapped in the enticing aromas of her new cabinmates that she didn’t realize the immediate elephant in the room: the cabin was built like a studio apartment, with one lumpy couch facing a television with an attached VCR below, a kitchenette fit for baking beans over the ancient stove and washing and drying laundry in the small adjacent closet, and a single king bed centered against the back wall. A door on the left side of the room had to be meant for the bathroom, but the bottom line was clear.

This escape would hold very little privacy for any of them. For the next couple weeks at least.

“How did you...come up with this place?” Darcy heard herself asking, letting her new bag of clothes drop beside the couch.

“My friend Curtis. Uses it when he needs a getaway from the city, pretty off the grid.” His eyes flickered up to her from where he’d been rummaging through the kitchen, his hands stopping in their tracks. “Nah, Missus - Darcy, you and Miss Page take the bed. I can sleep on a couch.”

“Frank,” Karen chimed in, like Darcy knew she would, kneeling beside the iron fireplace between the living room and kitchen to light the kindling Curt must have left.

“It’s fine,” Darcy insisted, the steadiness of her voice surprising her more than the sentiment of what she was about to say. “Bed’s big enough for all of us. I won’t take up much space.”

“Oh,” Karen and Frank said in unison. Darcy didn’t miss the way their eyes met in the dim light of the glowing flames.

Frank tore his gaze away first, beginning to fumble through the pots and pans. “I, uh...I’m gonna start some dinner. Karen, can you - can you find the instructions to turn on the water? And, uh, Darcy, there’s a couple logs on the side’a the house...was hopin’ to use some for firewood.”

Darcy smiled to herself, nodding without a word as she stepped back into the fresh wooded air. It was awkward, and clunky, and strange, in this small house with two people she’d never met before today, one of whom had intended to bury her husband and one who’d planned to shoot him dead.

Awkward, clunky, and strange, she thought, but also very, very free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Polyamayry!!  
> Tempt My Trouble belongs to Bishop Briggs :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of domestic violence.

Three days into what Karen was beginning to call their “little vacation,” Darcy had learned quite a bit about the beauty and flaws of her new roommates. For example, while Frank seemed to make only perfect blueberry pancakes for breakfast, he occasionally forgot to take his boots off before clambering into bed, which both she and Karen clamored against the moment one sole hit the sheets. Karen, on the other hand, had an eye for picking exactly the movie the three of them needed from Curtis’s pile of VHS tapes, and though she French-braided Darcy’s hair whenever Darcy felt bold enough to ask, her feet were often freezing in the middle of the night, and she was prone to alternating whose back she’d push them into each time they went to sleep. In the back of her mind, she wondered if there were good and bad things they noticed about her.

Without trying, she also noticed how often and how freely they would touch each other.

Frank, as it seemed, was on the receiving end most of the time, usually too wrapped up in whatever task he’d chored himself with to be distracted by Karen’s soft hand to his elbow, his shoulder, the bare back of his neck. But then, maybe he’d think Darcy wasn’t looking or maybe he didn’t much care if she was, and he’d frame Karen’s face with his large, rough hands, and lean his forehead to hers, whispering something soft and low and loving that made it feel like Darcy was intruding.

She spent most of the third day outside, hunting down fallen branches for firewood to let the two of them have their alone time. Somewhere after noon, when she was beginning to get hungry again, the familiar crunch of boots on pine needles approached from behind her.

“Need a hand?” There was a rare smile in Frank’s voice, and Darcy could imagine why. She had probably bitten off more than she could chew with the pile of wood teetering in her arms.

“Okay.” Half her stack disappeared from her grasp, so at last she could spot him over the sticks he’d left her with. He’d groused on their first morning about forgetting a razor, but Karen had peeked slyly at Darcy before musing that he looked good with a beard. By the third day, a thin stubble already clung to his sharp jaw.

“You, uh...doing okay?” he fumbled, falling in step with her on the small journey back to the cabin. “Feel like this is a little different. From what you might be used to.”

Meaning, was the little princess adjusting alright to not living in a castle? She swallowed hard, her lips curving into what she hoped resembled a frown and not a pout. “I wasn’t always his wife, you know.”

The half-sigh that escaped his chest told her he knew full well that he’d just put his foot in it. “I didn’t mean - ah, shit...I’m sorry. Shoulda known better.”

When he was embarrassed, he looked a bit like a kicked puppy. Darcy couldn’t help but soften. “This is a lot better than anything I thought I could have after Nicky. Can eat what I want, can wear what I want...with him it was like playing a doll. Seen and not heard, you know?”

He nodded. “He was a shitbag.”

She laughed - something she was doing a lot more these three days than she’d done in the last three years. “Yeah. He was.”

“C’n I tell you somethin’?” She helped him stack their winnings against the house, along with the wood that Curtis had assembled for them the last time he was here. “I, uh...when I saw you there, with him dead? Kinda impressed the hell outta me.”

She knew what he meant. She’d impressed - and scared - the hell out of herself. She never would have thought that she’d be able to do it. Not the doe-eyed little kid from Brooklyn she had been, but maybe it was what Nicky had turned her into. Maybe some good had come of him keeping her prisoner the way he had.

“Thank you,” she said, a pink flush creeping up the back of her neck. While something in her wished to bask in his attention and admiration, she was tired of putting any more thought into Nicky, even in death. “How do you know Curtis?”

“Ol’ war buddy. Navy guy, still gives me shit about choosin’ the Marines. Curt’s been there for me like nobody else I’ve ever known. Lot better with people than I am - don’t know how he puts up with me still.” She caught the impish grin playing across his lips; the flush had begun to inch its way over her ears. “Noticed you ain’t much for words, either.”

“I used to be different. Did a lot of talking without thinking about it first. Might’ve gotten me into trouble once or twice.”

They shared the smile now. Frank held the door open for her to come in, like he always did.

“Shit, it  _ still  _ gets me into trouble. As you’ve heard.”

“What gets you in trouble?” Karen hummed from the kitchen counter, removing a pot of coffee from the stove. Frank crossed the small space to the cabinet behind her to produce three white mugs.

“My big mouth.”

“Ah.” Darcy fell into her favorite squashy spot on the couch, watching Karen lean across Frank’s imposing frame to pour them each a cup. “Y’know, I  _ do _ recall it causing you some trouble in court.”

“Think it was all the bodies got me in trouble in court, Karen.” He slid her cup gently across the bar. Darcy caught it with both hands, smiling. 

Before she could make room on the couch for either of them, Frank and Karen both squished into place beside her, Frank lifting her legs by the back of the knees so that her feet rested in Karen’s lap across his. She didn’t miss Karen’s thumb working the knots out of her calves or Frank’s palm flat on her thigh, and with her coffee pressed to her chest, she lay her head back over the armrest in bliss.

If she’d been paying closer attention, she would watch the exchanging of glances between Karen and Frank. She would notice Karen setting her coffee on the counter behind her, opening a free hand so she could cup Frank’s cheek with it, her fingernails brushing against his stubble. She would notice the stuttering rhythm of Frank’s chest rising and falling, still not used to being sandwiched between two women who were not his wife, one who he knew loved him and the other who he was beginning to hope for as much. If she were paying attention, she would kiss Karen before Frank could put his scrambled thoughts together, make him close those large hands around her waist and pull her properly into his lap so that while she busied her lips with Karen’s lips, he might run his hands through her hair and press filthy kisses to her neck, feel the soft, fair skin beneath her cheap hoodie.

Instead she gulped down her scalding hot coffee, slid her legs over the side of the couch, and mumbled an excuse about needing to shower.

(Karen and Frank whispered under the sounds of running water that this was too fast, that neither of them had much anticipated just how fast it was this quiet, thoughtful, dangerous woman had unintentionally dug her heels into each of their hearts. They should talk about this when she got out, or at least one of them sleep on the couch tonight so that Darcy didn’t isolate herself, make herself feel more alone than she had with Nicky. When the water stopped, Frank got up from the couch and shrugged into his jacket to walk outside for a while, clear his head.)

When Darcy returned, still wet to the touch, in a fresh t-shirt and pajama pants, she plopped into the space she’d just vacated, her big blue eyes both soft and resolved. It was safe to say that Karen had not anticipated her doing so.

“I barely know you both,” she said, before Karen could speak. “And I’m still afraid. I’ve never...done...anything like this.”  _ Never killed anyone before a few days ago, either _ , a small voice in the back of her head piped up. “And I just got away from Nicky, and this is...I do like you. Both of you. I have a hard time with my feelings because...it’s been three years since I could even mention them without being a burden. Without...getting hit or choked out or screamed at.”

She hesitated to place a cautious hand on Karen’s. “It’s going to take some getting used to. But I want to try.”

Karen ran her thumb over the soft plane of the back of Darcy’s hand. “We didn’t expect this either. You know? We didn't...come to his place to seduce you against him or...take you hostage in some weird love cave.” She looked into her lap, and then around herself at what could very well have been some weird love cave - a quaint cabin in the woods with one bed, VHS tapes, and matching mugs? Certainly weird love cave material. “We just wanted to...make sure you were safe. You just...fit. With us.”

She knew what Karen meant. Yesterday morning, she’d felt herself tangled in Karen’s arms, Frank’s large hand closed on her hip, warm and loved, before realizing where she was and who was holding her. She’d slipped out of bed to splash water on her face in the bathroom and remind herself that this was not a dream. She could not wake up from the two people in that bed, the ones who were fast wrapping themselves around the naked parts of her heart she thought she’d forgotten.

“What happens after this?” Darcy heard herself ask, now with both hands in Karen’s. “It’s not going to look good for me...disappearing after what happened to Nicky. He had - he had powerful connections, the police and the CIA in his pocket. Bill Rawlins - he - he’ll be coming for us, he’ll be - ”

She swallowed, feeling as though all the air had been punched out of her gut. They couldn’t go on in this fantasy, imagining that the outside world wouldn’t be right there waiting for them. She couldn’t go on thinking that freedom didn’t have its consequences, that Nicky’s friends wouldn’t come for her like the rabid dogs they were.

Karen caught her by the cheeks, where Darcy hadn’t realized tear tracks were cutting a trail down her skin. Karen’s hands were stable, strong, as if to hold both of them together. “Hey, hey...it’s okay. Look...Frank has got…” She sucked in a breath, chewing on her plush lower lip. “...we know somebody. Somebody who’s been helping him start over, keep him from being caught up in...the drama of Frank Castle. She can protect you, too.”

Darcy blinked away the rest of her tears, pushing down the lump that had formed in her throat. “Like witness protection or something? Do I have to testify against him?”

“I don’t know,” Karen said quietly, slipping her hands into Darcy’s. “But we’ll be here for you every step of the way. Both of us.”

As though his ears were burning, Frank opened the door, one hand shoved deep in his pocket, raising his eyebrows at the two of them sitting close on the couch. “Hi.” He shuffled his feet on the doormat slowly, like he wasn’t sure yet if his presence was welcome.

“Hi,” Darcy began to say, drowned out by the rumble of her stomach.

Frank and Karen chuckled, and, with one small layer of her walls crumbling, Darcy started to laugh as well.

For dinner they ate three cans of warmed up Chef Boyardee ravioli with Curtis’s copy of  _ Jurassic Park _ in the VCR. After looking through his vast collection of tapes, and after all that Frank had said about him, Darcy decided she’d like to meet him someday. He had good taste.

“He’d like you,” Frank said, scraping the sides of his bowl to pile the thin sauce onto his last ravioli. “Be as impressed as I was. But he’d wanna make you sit down and talk about everything like he does with me.”

She smiled. “It can’t be all bad, I guess.”

Frank smiled back. “Nah. He makes me think. One’a not many people who can do that.” He was looking fondly on Karen now, and Darcy could tell she was trying, in vain, not to blush under his gaze. She looked everywhere except back at him, unable to keep the embarrassed grin off her lips.

“Maybe one of those people should be you, then,” Karen said at last, teasingly, and pushed away from her place at the table to take their dishes. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Frank is trouble with a capital T.”

“You’re both trouble.” Darcy got up to follow her, to find the detergent for the dishwasher, emboldened a little by the small, cozy circle that they’d pulled her into. “With a capital T.”

“You’re the most trouble of all, sweetheart,” Karen said, the nickname slipping as smoothly off her tongue as her hand slid around Darcy’s waist, but, like she’d reconsidered it, took it back away, the look on her face plain as day that she wondered if she’d gone too far. But Frank hummed in agreement, edging around both of them to scrub the pot he’d used for the ravioli in the sink. The kitchen had suddenly become rather crowded.

Not that any of them seemed to mind.

“It’s ‘cause we’re quieter than most,” Frank explained, as the sound of water rushed over his hands and against the metal. It was peaceful, Darcy thought. “Karen’s used to a loud office, loud friends. We throw ‘er off.”

Karen rolled her eyes. “I  _ do  _ have friends other than Matt, Foggy, and Marci, you know. It’s not exactly like I’m itching to bring everyone I meet to midnight coffee with you at our diner.”

_ Our _ diner, Darcy echoed in her head. Based on the dance of Karen’s fingers on her waist, she was included in that now, too. She tried to picture the three of them tucked into a booth late at night, ball caps low on their heads to conceal them from the slow bustle of the usual crowd. Coffee mugs in their hands, pancakes in front of them that wouldn’t hold a candle to Frank’s.

When the dishes were done and the movie was over, and the three of them had slid into bed, Karen waited for Darcy to tuck herself in before sealing the right side of the sheets with her own body. For the first time, Darcy was pressed between them, her chest to Frank’s with Karen draped over her side, her nose brushing the sensitive spot below Darcy’s ear.

“Do we  _ have _ to leave in a few weeks?” Darcy whispered, tracing the sharp line of Frank’s jaw with the palm of her hand. He smiled his rare smile, dipping his forehead to hers. She could hear the smile in Karen’s lips too, her soft breath tickling her baby hairs.

“You’ll get sick of it soon enough.” Frank ran his thumb across the plush of her lower lip. “My smelly ass stinkin’ up the place, choppin’ firewood. Curt’ll never let us come back.”

The promise of another “little vacation.” She felt herself grinning like a giddy schoolgirl, wanting to kiss them both until the sun rose in the morning. But the moment she closed her eyes, sleep crept in on little cat feet, carrying her into a soft, warm darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cat feet line is paraphrased from "Fog" by Carl Sandburg. Hope you enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing that Darcy noticed about Dinah Madani was her steady hands. She took studious notes for Darcy’s testimony against Nicky and Rawlins, never once tapping it or clicking it unnecessarily, and when she passed the manila file to Darcy, there was an air of unwavering certainty in the motion. “Danica Lawrence, your new life begins now. From all of us at the CIA, thank you for your service to this country.”

She blinked down at the file, peeling it open to examine her new driver’s license, her new passport - everything accurate except for her name, birthday, and address. It was almost as if she’d misheard; this couldn’t  _ really _ just be...over.

“That’s it,” she said flatly, running her finger over the ridges of Danica Lawrence’s birth certificate. “You don’t need...anything else from me? I get to...go on elsewhere?”

“While you’re welcome to visit Manhattan from time to time, it’s probably safer to stick to the house we have waiting for you in upstate New York.” Darcy nodded, and brushed back a few unfamiliar strands of the curly auburn hair Danica Lawrence was meant to have grown up with. “The CIA will send you enough to live on for the next six months. After that, it’s your responsibility to find work for yourself. You have a resume with CIA references based on your prior experience in your folder, so get familiar with the names on there. Other than that…” Madani shrugged, with a slight smile on her lips. “Welcome back to the world.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Dinah.” Darcy swallowed, taking her hand when offered. “I don’t know what I would’ve done...how I could’ve gone another day in that place…”

“Without you, we wouldn’t have put away men like William Rawlins. And to tell you the truth, I doubt the world is really missing Nicky or his goons.”

Darcy smiled back, at last. “Those are a couple names I could go the rest of my life without hearing.”

Madani let Darcy help herself to one last styrofoam cup of CIA coffee before escorting her through the back offices to collect her new possessions as Danica Lawrence. One large pink suitcase, a cream-colored handbag, and a small plastic milk crate of assorted documents that Madani pushed Danica’s file to the top of. As Darcy closed her hands around the handle of the suitcase and the handbag, Dinah with the crate to her hip, the latter’s phone began to chime with a text. Madani smiled again.

“Very good. Your husband and his sister-in-law are here to pick you up.”

“My…?”

Her eyes caught up with her brain before her mouth did, to the decidedly unfamiliar blue sedan parked by the curb with Frank Castle and Karen Page leaning against it, matching smiles pulling at their lips when they saw her emerge from the CIA building at Dinah Madani’s side.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Frank rumbled, catching her in his arms when she abandoned her bag and her suitcase to go running into his broad chest. “You doin’ okay?”

“Better now.” She scrubbed a hand over the wonderfully familiar brush of his beard. The investigation had only been a few weeks, but it felt like years since she’d seen the two of them. Karen grinned, and pressed her lips to Darcy’s cheek. “I missed you.”

“Missed you more, Mrs. Lawrence. Here, lemme help with these.” In a display of strength that should have surprised Darcy, Karen muscled up the pink suitcase and the handbag in one hand, tossing one into the trunk and the other into the already occupied backseat.

“Who the hell is this?” Madani cooed before Darcy could, reaching into the window to offer the slate-colored pit bull, with his big lunky head and his fast wagging tail, her hand to sniff. He licked it as soon as it cleared the glass, smiling with the bob of his tongue.

“His name’s Max.” Karen bent to scratch him behind the ears; he closed his eyes with a blissful panting smile. “Used to be Irish. Go ahead, he’s a big softie.”

Darcy had never had a dog - her mom had been too busy with work before she got sick, and Nicky had been allergic. She reached a cautious hand toward Max, pausing when he nuzzled wetly against her palm. He licked her and then ducked his head closer, like asking her to pet him properly. She smiled, and dug her fingers in at the base of his head.

“I like him,” Darcy decided, her thumb rolling up his snout. “He’s coming with us to the house?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Frank sang before planting another kiss to the top of her head. “You wanna sit up front with me or in back with him?”

Darcy stole a sidelong glance at Karen, who was watching on diplomatically, happy with whatever she would pick. “I want to drive.”

With one last goodbye to Madani, the road raced beneath their tires, the trees heavy with fruit and leaves in the windows outside. Darcy rolled hers down to feel her hair whipping against her neck in the warm air of late spring. Karen rolled her window down in the backseat to let Max stick his head out.

“Have you guys been to the house already?” Darcy asked, reminded a little of the first time she’d taken a road trip with them. It was nice to look back with fondness now.

“Moved everything in the last few weeks.” Frank couldn’t keep his hand out of her new hair, twisting the neat mahogany curls between his fingers. “Stocked up on pancake mix for you, too.”

She smiled and angled her body so that she could reach into the back seat, to let Karen squeeze her hand, to feel them both connected to her again. “And strawberries?”

Karen laughed. Darcy hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that sound. “Extra strawberries.”

This drive took up most of their day, much longer than the first road trip they had taken so many months ago, but Darcy only had the patience to stop for gas when they needed it and when Max needed to use the bathroom, stocking up on family-sized snack bags and knock off soda brands. She didn’t want to wait any longer than necessary to get to their new place - their new home.

They arrived just as the sun was beginning to dip past the horizon, the sky tinged with pink and purple. When they pulled into the drive of the house tucked behind golden wheat-covered hills, she couldn’t keep the wide smile from appling her cheeks. As if Max could sense her excitement, he woofed out a high bark, his tail thwacking audibly against the seat behind him.

The house at the end of the gravel path wasn’t terribly big, but it reminded her of the paintings her mother had hung throughout their apartment of countryside homes with regal trees standing at attention in front of white painted porches with bench swings on them. The bench on this one looked like it could fit the three of them, plus Max.

“Do you like it?” Karen whispered, sounding hopeful and cautious at once.

“It’s beautiful.” She put the car in park, whipped her seatbelt off, and leaned into the backseat to press a kiss to Karen’s lips, her hand on Frank’s thigh. “It’s  _ so _ beautiful. You both are  _ so _ beautiful.”

She would have stripped off her clothes and made love to them here and now, if Max hadn’t let out a delighted yelp, striping her face with kisses of his own. Frank let out a deep chuckle, ruffling his ears. “Yeah, yeah, ya impatient bastard.”

As Frank proceeded to the trunk of the car to pull out her luggage, Karen popped Max’s door open before sliding her hand into Darcy’s up the walkway. When the four of them reached the front door, Karen stopped, frowning at Frank’s hands fumbling for the keys.

“Hey, hang on - Darcy hasn’t been to the new house yet. You oughta be...you know.” She raised her eyebrows at Darcy, nodding to the door.

Now all three of them were frowning, Karen in frustration and Frank and Darcy in confusion. Karen huffed out a sigh as Frank finally got the door open, Max dashing ahead of them, and crossed in front of Darcy, bending her knees.

Darcy blinked. “What are you doing?”

“Just...get on.”

She knew she badly needed a shower, knew she might crush Karen with her tits, knew her armpits probably stank to high heaven. But she wrapped her legs around Karen’s waist anyway, her arms around her neck, and held tight.

Realization dawned slowly on Frank’s face. “Hey, wait a minute - ”

“Too late, Mr. Lawrence,” Karen smirked, giving Darcy’s thigh a playful squeeze. “ _ I’m _ carrying your wife over the threshold.”

He lugged up her bags with a half-hearted grumble, following the two of them into the house. Darcy wiggled her butt at him, giggling before he could give her a gentle swat on it. “Well, welcome home, Mrs. Lawrence.”

Once she’d crossed the threshold, Karen bent to let her down with surprisingly not-shaky knees. “So, the story is you’re the sister-in-law?”

“Oh, yes,” Karen said, grabbing Danica Lawrence’s handbag from Frank and showing her to their bedroom. “I’m not officially in Witsec, so I don’t necessarily need the false name or anything, but sometimes I like to come up with a story. You know, runnin’ from bandits or drug lords or something, to keep it interesting.”

Darcy eyed the plush-looking bed longingly, but at last wandered toward the bathroom, the day’s grime slinking down the back of her shirt. She fingered the hem of it before pulling it over her head, trying to suppress the glee bubbling inside her as her lovers’ eyes followed the plains of her naked skin. “Well, does my...drug lord-riddled sister-in-law want to join me in the shower? And my husband?"

Frank’s smile turned devilish as he backed the two of them into the bathroom by the hips.

Later, when the three of them had spent far more time enjoying the steam of the shower and learning each other’s bodies once more, than making sure they themselves were clean, Darcy wrapped herself in a towel that felt like it swallowed her and collapsed into a pile of jelly on the bed.

Frank padded out not much later, Karen’s sliding her arms around his waist from behind. Both sets of eyes were on her, even as Karen pecked gently at a spot beneath his ear. “You alright, sweetheart?”

Before she could open her mouth to answer, her stomach rumbled loudly. Karen giggled, disentangled herself from Frank, and lifted Darcy by the hand. “Ready for strawberry pancakes, I think.”

“I’ll set the table,” Karen hummed, stepping into a clean pair of shorts. “ _ You _ don’t have to lift a finger today.”

Darcy mirrored her with a thin set of sweatpants and one of Frank’s old t-shirts. “Actually...I kind of have another idea.”

It was way too late for breakfast, and way too late for breakfast on the porch, but once Frank had finished in the kitchen, he sat between his two loves on the porch swing, leaning back into the wood as he listened to the one on his right rattle off every constellation she could remember, and the one on his left pretended she wasn’t feeding bits of pancake to the dog.

Darcy let her eyes linger on Orion’s Belt, and tucked herself closer into Frank’s side, inhaling the honey-warm country air. Her free arm rested over the top of the bench, where her fingers could dance on the bare patch of skin at the nape of Karen’s neck.

“I love you,” she said, to both of them, to her new home, to this new life that she couldn’t have dreamt up in a million years. At once, Frank kissed her forehead and Karen kissed her fingertips.

“I love you,” Karen said, at the same time that Frank murmured, “Love you, too, sweetheart.”

When she closed her eyes, she knew that the outside world would come knocking for them one day. That the hills wouldn’t always be so golden, and that her days wouldn’t always be soaked in lovemaking and pruney fingers picking at pancakes.

That was okay. As long as they were in it together.


End file.
